Where I am at creatively, atm? What does a soul do with creativity and inspiration? With the flow and the necessary ebb of productive humours? Do you put them in a box, a routine that allows them daily expression? Do you wait until they burst in fiery generating glory then suffer the long slow down-swing before the next up-swing? Is it something in-between? Is this in-between even possible? As an author of three books, should I have not already figured this out?
While you chew on that cud, please be entertained by a glimpse of a current WIP: a map of Brandenbrass.
Brandenbrass: Work-in-progress.
Brandenbrass: a detail.
Of course, is doing a map of Brandenbrass useful? Perhaps leaving it uncharted and open to interpretation would serve better?* I do love a good map tho, and figuring out how in Photoshop I can achieve an antiquated look has been a grand adventure.
As to your observation about far-seeing Idaho, Mr Alyosha, this is indeed an insight for Idaho was indeed extraordinary woman carrying much of the vigour and clarity and inspiration of the mighty, self-destroyed Phelgms. She alone of all the survivors of her original nation's fall managed to establish a new empire, and only the hard hearts and selfish ambition of her ministers finally brought that empire low by the betrayal of her equally dynamic grand-daughter, Dido, the reputed founder of the Sceptic/Haacobin dynasty. Thus, this is why the aristocracy are so keen to align themselves with such a vaunted bloodline.
How do I speak about the Derelands, Simon? I want to spout on and on, but also want to save it all for actual stories. Can I ask you what ideas you might have about it?
Time to log, cheers to you all.
*My word, I am full of questions today...
48 comments:
A new story and never once did you mention I've cathared myself. Yay new maps!
Huh, what...?
I have. I think magnetism falls within the fulgar category, but am open to other suggestions. check your facebook messages!
I like the new story ideas and, to be honest, I hope your publisher greenlights both of them. As for the map, I believe it is a very fine map
Splendid map and I am most interested in the forthcoming tales...
best wishes
Tradgardmastre
You say you were inspired by Tolkien... Do you ever plan to create or have created for you a set of linguistically realistic languages in the style of Quenya and Sindarin? Your world, with its strange Romantic and Germanic roots, seems a wonderful place to create languages for.
Reply to The Lonely Scribe:
My guess is Mr. Cornish is trying that with peculiar dialects and jargon, not with entirely new languages. He might have reason to make a language for the lands north and east of the empire, though. There have been occasional references to Hergott and Tutin and the like, but those seem to be slight modifications of existing tongues, if QGU is any example.
As for the new post, I say jubilation. Here's to hoping both new stories will be published in America so I can get hard copies. I'm curious about the lives of more "mundane" folks in the H-c. Seemingly, the story about the rams has been set aside for the moment? My best wishes and a merry Christmas to you folks.
-Ben
Good to hear that new stories are on their way, and one hopes that the naval yarn is nearing a launch date!
Looks amazing! (Everything you draw does!)
What ideas i have about the Derelands? I imagine it's some sort of country much colder and more snowy than the half-continent, covered with forests of gnarly trees. Lurking around are wolf and lynx-like nickers and that kind of monsters : )
As kings and queens are not that common (indeed, are they even present at all?) in the Haacobin empire, maybe the contries(?) in the Derelands are as a contrast ruled by kings and queens...
(Wow! Your world really sets the imagination going, love it!)
Looking forward on what's coming next, especialy those new stories! :D
-Simon
Wow, Simon, you hit the nail right on the head there! (Have you been secretly reading my notebooks?!)
It is of course "modern" by Half-Continent standards, trading freely (well as freely as the vinegars seas and its denizens allow) with them, exchanging ideas and technologies. A Sundegirdian would not feel at all out of place in a Dereland city, though the country side is generally wilder, craggier.
Far south in the polar domians of Heilgoland is another matter tho...
"...and if i catch a morbid ill, from Heigoland's most wretched chill..."
I so wish I could get my hands on Australia´s Legends of Fantasy. Maybe it would bring back my joy for reading.
Well, Anna the story that was published in there - "The Corsers' Hinge" - is looking rather likely to now be published with another shorter tale of mine as a two tale anthology in the new year. Given that my Swedish publishers dropped MBT before it was done, I doubt they will pick this new text up (tho you never know) here's praying that a UK edition might at least exist as well as an ANZ edition so that it might be simpler for you to get your hands on.
As to new languages, Lonely Scribe, Ben has it more or less correct: for Tolkien the languages came first, then the world around it as he needed reasons for the language to exist, whereas I had a list of names and a whole bunch of concepts that needed a single connecting notion. He was a philologist, he actually knew with academic clarity how languages are formed and how they transmute: I could not possibly compete with this nor do anything quite so brilliant as Sindarin and Quenya. More importantly, he invented these languages quite naturally, where as for me to do something similar at this point would be forced. For me plundering German, classical Greek, Latin, Dutch, Polish, Spanish, Anglosaxon, Old Norse and all the rest to simulate language has been natural, allowing me to express and employ my own fascination and wonder for how English came to be the remarkable language that it is (IMO).
To walk in Tolkien's path is not to copy him, it is to be guided along my own process through the inspiration of his process. It is not: he made a language so I must a language, he had elves so I must have elves, he had an evil overlord threatening world destruction so I must have an evil overlord threatening world destruction (tho I must confess his big map is why there is my big map); it is more the scale, the rigour for truthfulness within a fantastical setting, the vibe of the elves and of the ents and the wilds, the all-consuming convincingness of his writing and setting, the deep deep effect it had on me - these are the things that I want to emulate.
Great question, Lonely Scribe, thank you.
Thank you, Master Cornish for answering the question about Idaho – which, indirectly, also answers another question asked long ago about whether the Phelgms were a race of humanity, or rather some independent branch of manlike beings branched off from monter-kind. Idaho and Dido founding a new dynasty amongst the “modern humans” argues for the former.
And thank you so much for the map. I too love a fine a map and can find myself fascinated by one of something as mundane as my own city. So a map of an exotic city like Brandenbrass (which leaves plenty of mystery in the Half Continent for our imaginations to work on) is better yet. But how I would love to see more detail than the computer screen allows! It would be great if you someday offered for sale prints of your maps and perhaps selected other illustrations (if your publisher allows that) from your books.
I´ll keep my fingers crossed. Sometimes the world feel really small and sometimes there is a world apart. Sigh.
Mr. Cornish
Is there any chance of a USA edition of the anthology?
-Ben
We will have to see, Mister Bryddia, but I certainly hope so. Such things are down to publishers and not me I am afraid.
Merry Christmas all!
Just wanted to let you know that I've finally got all three Monster Blood Tattoo novels together on my shelf. I hadn't realized the UK editions didn't include a dust jacket. Hoping to add more books to it in future.
-Ben
Congratulations!
Never though of selling a license to publish a role playing game based on the universe of the Monster Blood Tattoo? It could also serve as a 'sourcebook' for 'wargaming'.
And perhaps a range of corresponding miniature figurines in the popular '28mm' size?
Kickstarters / Indiegogoes and the like are currently all the rage to launch new rules and new ranges of miniatures.
Best regards and wishes.
Beautifully done maps! I'd have to wallpaper my apartment with maps of the entire H-C to fully appreciate all their detail. I'm only halfway through Lamplighter and taking my sweet time rationing out the reading of it so it doesn't end so soon. (But I'm not worried about spoilers, as a delightful friend has already done me the fine service of announcing to me how Factotum ends. Grr.)
I found myself so inspired by the rich setting and fully realized characters that I've begun to write my first bit of fiction since high school (15 years ago, yikes!). So I find myself having a few questions that I hope someone can help me with.
1. In terms of distance auditory and visual acuity, I've determined (I hope correctly)that a laggard with a sthenicon is always more accurate than a falseman with a sthenicon, owing to the different alembant rinses they've used. Could a highly trained nonleer lurksman with a sthenicon ever become more accurate than a falseman and/or a laggard without a sthenicon? In other words, does a falseman or a laggard (or maybe only a laggard)without a sthenicon have enhanced sensory acuity in the field beyond that of an ordinary untrained nonhuman like you or I? Also, I'm assuming that a leer must choose whether to become falseman or laggard but cannot be both simultaneously, correct?
2. If a vinegaroon has to abandon ship and thinks it likely he will end up in the vinegar sea, is there any script he could quickly take to buffer the sea's acidic corrosiveness and extend the time before it causes him irreparable damage?
Ouch, it looks like one of those awful logic problems from a college entrance exam.
Thank you in advance for any insight you can offer!
~ Meg
Oops...Regarding my previous post,I meant "ordinary untrained NON-LURKSMAN HUMAN like you or I". Not "nonhuman". Apologies!
Good questions, Meg, I'd like to know the answers as well.
To your leer questions:
What I remember of leers has no details on the sight improvement, but I could take a stab at it. Assuming the non-laggard has been trained to use a sthenicon, I think the leer would be able to see better, but tracking overall would be better with the sthenicon's enhancement of smell with the visual improvement.
By the by, sthenicons only improve sight and smell, while hearing is unaltered. Also, someone who has no training in use of a sthenicon and is not a leer is unperspicuous, if that helps in your writing.
As for combination laggard/falseman, we've seen evidence of people experimenting with modifications in MBT. Even though it's not usually done, I could see why an enthusiastic person would want one eye with each ability. I have a feeling that using all of the chemicals in both eyes might do more damage than good, though.
For potives:
Even if there were something a vinegaroon could drink to ward off acid, I don't think it would be effective quick enough to prevent severe damage from the Vinegar.
Basically, if the draft has to go through part of the digestive system and then through the blood stream, the skin would be in contact with the sea too long before it helps, though it could keep them from dying in the long run. I think a more immediate solution could be a script you apply like lotion that helps neutralize the acidity, though it would take a long time in an emergency situation.
I'm not Master Cornish, but I hope my thoughts can be of help.
Master Come Lately,
Thank you for the most helpful suggestions. I hadn't even considered the possibility of a leer having one falseman eye and one laggard eye, but how cool! It's a pity I can barely even draw stick figures. That would be an awesome fan art project for someone to undertake!
Regarding the script for shipwrecked vinegaroons, I like your idea of an ingestible potive that could extend life by protecting the internal organs while doing little for the outer body. Maybe vials of this would be kept in boxes secured to each lifeboat? I think that will fit into my little tale quite nicely, so thank you! I'm a Biologist/Marine Scientist by training, so I can't help but let my mind endlessly ponder the endless possibilities of science in a new setting.
I'm almost done with this very short naval story. It spawned itself as a side story within a longer (non-naval) tale I'm writing, but I think it might also stand well enough on its own. Both will be rated T for a bit of gore, but I'm trying to keep it within the audience level of the MBT books.
I could use a few suggestions to work out the final details:
- What is the most common type of privately owned nearshore merchant ship? (I'm thinking of something that a captain-owner might buy secondhand. It stays within 10 miles of land, plying trade along the closely spaced ports of The Lent in eastern Isidore.)
- What size crew does it have?
- Would these privately employed sailors be called vinegaroons, or is that term only used in the Navy?
- If one were at sea near the coast of Isidore, in what direction does the sun rise/set?
I was pretty thrilled to learn there's a real creature called a Giant Vinegaroon. It's a whipscorpion that creates and excretes actual vinegar to protects itself from predators. The species name is 'Mastigoproctus giganteus' which if my high school Latin serves me correctly is roughly 'Giant Chewing Butt'. These burrowing arachnids are commonly kept as pets. We shall have to keep this in mind when Mr. Cornish's birthday next rolls around...
Looking at pictures of Giant Vinegaroons now. Those are some nasty-looking animals (in a good way), like a cross between a scorpion and a hornet!
On topic, I think I have just the ship you're looking for. If you have a copy of Lamplighter, the complimentary definition for chapter 1 defines "packet rams," described as thus: Any class of ram that has been radicaled (had part of its lower decks cleared of guns and at least one of its masts lowered/removed) to allow for the taking on of cargo and/or passengers. Such vessels are usually privately owned, the tariffs for loading/unloading and the fares being their owners' income. Neither fighting vessel nor true cargo, nevertheless what a packet ram loses in carrying capacity it makes up for in firepower and, in the case of a converted frigate, speed.
Apparently, any kind of ram could theoretically become a packet ram, though I assume it would be impractical for the larger varieties. You're likely going to have a packet ram similar in size to the Widgeon (a frigate), which is what Rossamund traveled on in the beginning of Lamplighter.
I didn't catch any specific number of crew (which are only referred to as "the crew" in the book), but when they went to battle, it was obvious there were not enough crewmen to run the ship and man 4 cannons at the same time. So, if you can research how many men it would take to man a standard cannon, multiply it by 4, then figure out roughly how many men are needed for the basic running of a ram (most likely in the Foundling Explicarium), you'll have a good idea of how many men at most would make up the crew of a packet ram.
As for the direction of the sunrise: since there is no mention otherwise, I assume it's the same East-to-West direction as reality.
Also, if you have more questions, or whenever you finish your story, you're welcome to post it in the MBT forums: http://unofficialmbt.yuku.com.
The community, myself included, would love to help... assuming they get online to see it.
The packet ram was just what I needed, thanks! I just finished my short story "Captain's Tally" (rated T for moderate non-violent gore) and posted it at fanfiction dot net in the MBT category, but I'll add it to the yuku forum as soon as I get approved as a member. I have about a million questions for my longer story, so I'll move myself over to the forums to ask them.
Thanks for posting the location, and thanks in advance for joining the forums!
By the by, the book that has the complimentary definition for packet ram is Factotum, not Lamplighter. My mistake.
Well, I check at last to find that I have completely missed a raft of necessary questions from you, Meg. Great answer, Mr Come-Lately - you beat me to the punch with the leer with either eye laggard/falseman; it would involve closing one eye or the other as needed to get the best result (I would imagine the two together providing a bewildering spectacle, tho it could well be got used to by the person so eye-soaked).
As to whether a lurksman (a non-leer who uses a sthenicon) could have sharper senses that a leer with a sthenicon: the simple answer is most commonly no (tho I would never want to rule out those exceptional individuals, but this would be VERY exceptional) - and a laggard with a sthenicon would do better with it than a falseman, tho for a falseman it would very much enhance their ability to see lies and evasions etc.
A properly crewed packet-ram (indeed correct, Master Lately, you rock, sir!) would have a crew of about 50 odd - since she does not have as many guns nor intends to fight them in absolute earnest except in defence. The crew work a simplified watch system of day and night and are called packeteers (tho I cannot get away from "merchantmen" either - such a oerfect word already, so this also is good).
If you are off the gentle sandy coasts of Isadore (with their iron sea-walls to keep the nasty sea-nickers out) then the sun will rise as it does for us, on the east and set over land to the west.
I see that I am too late, but perhaps this might be useful in revisions. You have all have my permission to email me directly with questions, too.
Oh, and there is little that can be done to spare a soul when jumping into the vinegar seas. And apart from the causticity (not acidity - except in a few rare cases), most vinegaroons and marchantmen do not know how to swim. There is a concoction of grindewahl blubber that a soul can smear on themselves if they have time, but this is about it. I to like the notion of a potive that protects internal organs (Genius Lately, I shall call you): I think its function would be to protect the body's chemistry, because from what I understand, it is not the corrosiveness of complete exposure to chemicals that slays you, but those chemicals getting into you system via you skin and interrupting and shutting down your metabolic process, and it is this that the potive would prevent.
Thank you for your kind words, Master Cornish!
"As to whether a lurksman could have sharper senses than a leer with a sthenicon."
Do you mean "...a lurksman [with a sthenicon] could have sharper senses than a leer *without* a shtenicon?" Forgive me if I misread.
Honestly, I didn't get into research for effects of corrosion on the body, as I've always thought the Vinegar was acidic rather than corrosive. Thus, the detail of the chemicals shutting down the metabolic system wasn't a thought on my part, only the chemicals being absorbed by the skin.
Also, Master Cornish, would it be a problem if we posted the definitions from the 3 explicaria over at the forums? Would it be infringing on some plagiarism/copyright thing, or is it not in your knowledge?
You guys are way beyond awesome!
Master Come Lately, I think we were pondering the same question: well-trained (non-leer) lurksman with sthenicon VS falseman (or maybe just laggard) without sthenicon.
I'll revise my story to change the vinegaroons to packeteers, and increase the crew size (that'll mean a drop in the survivorship rate of our crew since the brave Captain can only do so much, poor fellow!)
If I may geek out scientificially for a moment...vinegar is by definition diluted acetic acid, which is corrosive to the skin and digestive system if swallowed in concentrated doses. If it were to cause death acutely (within a few hours of falling in the sea), the most likely ultimate cause of death, in addition to all the other nasty stuff that happen, would be that the blood's natural buffering system couldn't keep up with the acidity being introduced to the body. Because cells require specific pH ranges within their membranes to function, you wouldn't last long with severely unbuffered blood. Acetic acid is classified as a 'weak acid'. The 'weak' just means it doesn't fully dissociate (lose all its hydrogen protons) in solution. 'Weak' does NOT mean it's safer than a 'strong acid', as many an amateur chemist has discovered the hard way (a few little chemical burns taught me this). Hydrofluoric acid is a weak acid, but it'll eat through glass and dissolve your bones if you spill a few drops on your skin ,even if you quickly wash it off. I literally had nightmares about it!
The description in Foundling of how death occurs from exposure to the vinegar seas suggests there's probably some other nasty corrosive chemicals in the water that act in synergism with the vinegar/acetic acid. Earth's seawater has tons of minerals and dissolved compounds, so probably the vinegar seas do also?
Ahh, yes, I see, but what about alkalai/basic fluids? Would they affect the blood in the same way?
The term "vinegar sea" is not a reference to the sea actually being made out of vinegar fyi, it is a poetic reference (me aping Homer's "wine-dark sea" in fact), so don't get too hung up on that. Moreover, it will be drowning that is the biggest killer of crews of sinking vessels: being able to swim in the Half-Continent is a rare and remarkable feat.
I think an long-experienced lurksman with sthenicon could compete with a laggard without yes, indeed yes - in truth, I have replied on such a thing in "THE CORSERS' HINGE".
Master Lately, please feel free and cite this a permission to use the three quotes you need.
True enough about the swimming. I remmber being shocked the first time I heard that until modern times, most sailors couldn't swim. What a frightening experience it must've been to be out on the open sea and know that you're toast if you fall in!
Bases can definitely be caustic to skin. (Fish can get ammonia burns if it builds up in the aquarium, but they have much more delicate skin than us.) For bases, think ammonia, lye (nasty stuff!), and most compounds ending in "hydroxide". Parts of the H-c oceans could be more acidic or basic if you looked at the larger scale map. But within one area, I'd think that basic and acidic components would react (perhaps violently, as they often do in in the lab!) and reach a sort of equilibrium somewhere along the pH scale. Hm, now I'm imaging some crazy violently churning estuary on the H-c where lye effluent from a soap-making factory runs into a river that meets the vinegar sea and causes a neverending multi-colored explosion. But I digress.
Earth's ocean water is mildy basic, but it's become significantly more acidic since the Industrial Revolution as it's absorbed more carbon dioxide. The ecological effects are wide-ranging and staggering.
The ocean's pH is regulated by a carbonate buffering system that's closely tied to biology and geology and lots of crazy feedback loops that often reduced me to tears when I had to learn it in grad school.
Thanks for answering the questions about lurksmen and laggards! *POW! OUCH!* (that's the sounds of me kickboxing the wall because I can't get the book in the U.S.:)
This discussion makes me curious. Once heard it postulated that the earth's oceans originally had very little salt. This source also stated that errosion has picked up salts and other minerals from the land mass surface runoff crosses, then deposited said minerals in the oceans. A good example of this is the Dead Sea, which receives surface run-off from a very large basin and is continuously dehydrated due to evaporation. If this is roughly how earth's seas became salty, what natural processes created the brine in MBT?
-Ben
Ben, I'm no geologist but I think that's pretty much the scientifically accepted theory. Evaporation concentrates mineral and ion levels from riverine and rain inputs, so the ocean stays salty. Hydrothermal vents are a big factor also as they release chemicals up through the crust (and man, do they have some CRAZY communities of weird organisms living around them!!!)
I too share your curiosity about how the vinegar seas ended up as they are. Were they always that way, or was there some anthropogenic pollution or other disturbance that changed the ocean chemistry more recently? [The estuaries of south Texas where I did my research have become saltier due to huge reductions in freshwater reaching them as more water is diverted upstream by rice farmers and the state's booming population needs. Estuarine species diversity has taken a big hit.] Just as most ancient cultures had myths about how the world was created, most also had myths about how the sea became salty. I'd love to know the more about the lore of the vinegar seas.
I just learned about a recently discovered marine invertebrate called the Carnivorous Harp Sponge (look it up!) that is visually stunning and frightening because it actively catches prey with barbed hooks and then digests them slowly. I wonder if these also live in the vinegar sea? I can imagine giant versions of them being grown by mariculturists for transplantation along harbor entrances and major shipping routes, to create a protective fence against deep sea nadderers. Or maybe the sea monsters might grow them and build strategically placed "bio-traps" to ensnare ships.
Until recently I’d viewed Everymen, or Phlegms, or any other humanish race, as just a branch of the euriphim (“born of the mud, as we” says the Lapinduce) especially gifted at self promotion and reproduction. But as I was re-reading favorite portions of Factotum last night I began to wonder if there wasn’t, after all, a clear divide between the two tribes.
The euriphim are in touch with the raw powers and cycles of creation because, in a sense, they are those powers and cycles. And the price they pay for that power is that “they are what they are,” with little opportunity to change or grow. Even the Lapinduce says that there “margins that I have placed on myself and limits laid down upon me.”
Everymen, on the other hand, are cut from their own roots, but in a way, paying that price gives them a freedom to become and to explore that the monsters do not have. I wonder if the “Every” in the Everymen of the Half Continent means not just typical or ordinary as it does in our own tongue, but also captures that potential to do or become anything or everything.
And Rossamund is that wonder of wonders, a being who manages to bridge the gap, who is in touch with the primal powers of creation, but at the same time able to truly chose his own path rather than one that has been pre-ordained by his nature. Not that there aren’t very, very rare examples of euriphim who have become the same sort of bridge, e.g. Cinnamon who, in the words of the Lapinduce, “has always been curious beyond his place, wandering further and further through the eons, outside his rightful range.”
That's pretty deep, Alyosha. That meaning may or may not have been meant in the story, but it's a great one that I will now apply to my head-
canon.
By the way, it's a pleasure for me to meet a legendary fan of MBT such as yourself!
Thank you for the kind words, but I don't think that fans can aspire to the rank of legendary. I'm just enthusiastic about MBT, which is enough. And as for what wisdom there might be in what I wrote above... all credit goes to the great Lapinduce :-).
Alyosha
The idea that you're talking about is treated differently in other fantasy works (I know Star Wars is this way; I think maybe D&D started it). Essentially, humans are able to stand against these incredible non-humans because they're adaptable, and they will change to fight any opponent (see habilists). The other races, say hobbits or zeltrons, would all be a bit more one way than humans are. What they lack in special skills, they make up for in adaptability.
The differences you're pointing out are the connections to the earth/past as the basis for the more static nature of monster, but not everyman.
I'd be interested to see if Mr. Cornish intended anything like this.
-Ben
Norton 360 new variation of Norton Antivirus is especially good from finding and attending to malware.
Hi all
Maybe it's just me, but if a live action movie isn't in the cards, wouldn't Monster Blood Tattoo make a good anime? The amount of pugnacious women, the bizarre setting and technology, and the overall grim view of violence and monster/human animosity reminds me of some better Japanese fantasy/sci-fi stories. Not saying there's any possibility of it happening (not even sure MBT has a Japanese translation). I was just wondering if other people see the analogies.
-Ben
I think MBT as an anime would be a really good idea! At the very least, it would make a good topic for the forums...
HAppy Blogging
Anime seems like an excellent format for telling this first MBT story. But a possible hang up I see is that Master Cornish, though a writer, is also fundamentally an artist. So, unless he found time to illustrate a whole anime himself (no small task, and something I don't see happening in conjunction with creating new novels) he would have to let go and let someone else be the artist for this alternative telling of his story.
Congratulations on a beautiful design ...
Thank you so meaningful
Meaningful Inspiration
Can anyone help me find the location where Cloche Arde, Europes Manor would be on this map?
It's been bugging me for months I still can't find it.
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